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Children Books in Arabic
"A lack of good quality children's books in Arabic means that parents are reading to their children from English books, said a publisher.
"Isobel Abul Houl, publisher for Jeroboam books that publishes children's books in both English and Arabic, said: 'There's a lack of good children's books in terms of illustration, quality and imagination, so the majority of children's books in Arabic are often translated or they're poor quality.'
"Isobel felt that there's 'a belief that books should be cheap but parents will happily pay Dh42 for a children's book in English, but won't pay this for the Arabic equivalent, because it's perceived as too expensive. Why should it cost less money because it's in Arabic?'
"Isobel is also the Director of the first Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature, which will take place in Dubai from February 25 to March 1, 2009, and director of regional book store Magrudy's.
"She said: 'There's not a lack of Arabic writers, but I think that authors and writing are not valued in Arabic. It's not that there are no good writers in Arabic, it's just that there's no industry and no one's going to buy the book if it's written in the language.' [...]"
Source: Gulf News (UAE), June 21, 2008
Posted at: 2008-06-23
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